Dodgers: Bombshell book confirms Astros cheated during World Series

Well, would you look at that, Dodgers fans! Huh. Weird. Huh!

Following his office’s investigation into the behavior of the Houston Astros in 2017 (and beyond), Rob Manfred stopped short of outright declaring that the team’s trash can scheme had extended through the postseason and all the way to the World Series, won by the ‘Stros in Game 7.

There was a clear reason for that. After all, he’d decided not to pop an asterisk on there or alter the record books in any way.

Therefore, we were blessed with “conflicting but credible” evidence that the 2017 World Series was tainted, but nothing more. Until now!

According to SNY’s Andy Martino in his upcoming book “Cheated,” a thorough examination of all forms of illicit use of the video room and beyond from the past few years, Manfred’s language was coded and vague, but there’s plenty to indicate the scheme never stopped until the final champagne was popped in 2017.

After White Sox reliever Danny Farquhar smelled a rat in September, the team got more cautious with being brazen about what they were doing, sure. But they rushed to make sure the apparatus was functional before every playoff game nonetheless.

Yes, the Astros cheated during the 2017 World Series. Confirmed, Dodgers fans.

Great. Now do 2018 and 2019.

We say it sarcastically, but surely the book does delve into what the hell happened when the Astros met Alex Cora’s Red Sox in 2018, otherwise known as the one team on earth that fully understood exactly what was going on under the hood in the other dugout — and defeated Houston in five games.

Had the Red Sox absorbed any of the mechanisms themselves when they beat the Dodgers in that World Series, or did they just know how to counteract it when they saw it? So much more to unpack, and we can’t wait to get our hands on this book, which covers everything from the depth of Houston’s depravity to similar allegations levied on tons of other teams — which may or may not include the Brewers-Dodgers fracas in 2018.

At the very least, this book’s release will give us a chance to settle one element of the argument once and for all. Did the Astros cheat during the World Series? Yes.

Would they have won the World Series without cheating? Possibly! That’s perhaps the most infuriating part of all this. They did win Game 7 on the road, after all.

Did the cheating help the Astros along the way? YES. Y-E-S. Like a Clayton Kershaw curveball in the dirt, point taken.

Dodgers fans will perhaps never get closure here — especially since we thought the 2020 World Series would deliver it, but the baseball world at large have decided we deserve the asterisk Houston never got for that honor.

At least we’ve got a definitive answer, though, on our biggest recent shame. Now if only we can figure out how far the cheating spread, and if we’re looking at two years in a row of thievery here.

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